Well that was ugly…. 2018 is in the books, and looking at the asset class scoreboard for the full year is like looking at who won in a race to zero. What was down? Take your pick! Stocks, yep. World Stocks (worse). Commodities (worse yet). Real Estate (down). The diversifiers Hedge Funds and Managed Futures? […]
Category: Education
03
Jan
2019
31
Dec
2018
The top 10 posts in 2018
This might be a humble brag, but 2018 was a great year for our Attain Alternatives blog. Content was pushed out covering non-correlation, backwardation, the world cup and the crazy year for managed futures. We put together the top 10 blogs of 2018 — based on the number of reads. If you haven’t already, take […]
31
Dec
2018
The best and worst futures markets in 2018.
With 2018 coming to a close, we’d once again like to take a look at the best and worst of this year’s futures markets. Using the year to date tab over on finviz on the last day of the year lets us see the 2018 performance of 48 futures markets: What we noticed: VIX […]
11
Dec
2018
Wild Trading is Straining the Plumbing?
You have to hand it to the WSJ – they really know how to make the safety of Trillions of Dollars in derivatives trading across dozens of exchanges look pretty pedestrian. Their hero image of the firm, which cleared 4.3 Billion contracts last year and holds about $130 Billion in margin deposits for clients, is […]
10
Dec
2018
Asset Class scoreboard: November
How did it get to be December 10th already? We feel like we were just having turkey and pumpkin pie last week, but looks like we’re already a week into the last month of the year. Which brings us to a delayed release of last month’s asset class scoreboard, where it was a reversal of […]
26
Nov
2018
Crude has dropped 25%, is it in a Down Trend?
It’s been no secret that Alternative investments haven’t provided on their promise of diversification during the recent sell off in equity markets (even if that promise is based on providing non-correlation, not negative correlation at each down turn). The excuses are mostly valid – in that the sell off was a reversal of an up […]
05
Nov
2018
Asset Class scoreboard: Red October
Even if one of our favorite books/movies is the Hunt for Red October – it was a little disconcerting to see a sea of red on the asset class scoreboard in October – with nowhere to hide among traditional stocks and bonds or alternatives like Managed Futures, Hedge Funds, and Commodities. No quarter was given […]
25
Oct
2018
VIX: Not All 1,000 pt drops are the same
We jokingly tweeted out yesterday how the VIX’s three different reactions to seemingly similar market sell offs this year has reminded us of the many faces of Jim Carrey. Here’s the imagery to go along with that concept: But all jokes aside, it’s worth noting the movement […]
11
Oct
2018
They’re baaacckkk – VIX pops 8mos after Feb 5th
ok Maybe it was the Cat 4 hurricane barreling down on the Florida panhandle which had everyone’s attention, but yesterday’s VIX spike sure didn’t feel like the one that brought people out in body bags back in February. February 5th saw the Dow fall about 1,200 points, it’s worth point loss in history; while yesterday […]
03
Oct
2018
Real Estate as a Portfolio Diversifier?
It seems like we’re working our way through the Ritholtz Wealth team’s posts recently, spending a bit of time on Barry’s views on disappearing Hedge Fund Performance, and then reading with interest Ben Carlson’s questioning post recently: “Is Real Estate a Non Correlated Asset Class?”. Based on the title alone, we were ready to pounce […]
